Gamasutra - The Impact of Activision Blizzard @ Gamasutra

Article on the merger as it gets close to being finalised with thoughts on the industry as a whole.

"I suspect there will be a bunch of folks displaced in the process," agreed Buscaglia, but from a slightly different angle. "The consolidation of the portfolios of the two companies is likely to make it more difficult for an independent developer to get their games picked up -- for example, say a studio is pitching an FPS war game. Before Activision was a no go due to Call of Duty, but you might get a shot with Sierra Entertainment. Now there's one less publisher to pitch to. And that goes both ways and applies to competing games with every successful title on both portfolios now."

However, there may be opportunity in the "ton of IPs that one or the other company has moth-balled that the other may see some real value in," continued Buscaglia. "I expect to see some cool IPs that we have not seen around for quite a while showing up after this while merger thing settles in."

And though developers might find it harder to pitch new projects, the other publishers may find plenty of space to fit in the new industry landscape.